Civilization as an Asset in the Age of AI: How Do We Redefine Culture?

This article is based on a keynote speech by Ms. Xie Bin, Executive Director of Sun TV and an expert in digital culture, at the "Art and Science" Cultural Heritage Forum held in the Greater Bay Area on November 22, 2025. The topic was: "Digital Cultural Models: Artistic Narratives and Civilizational Assets in the AI Era."

About the Speaker

Xie Bin （Robin）graduated from the University of Science and Technology of China as part of its gifted youth program in 1998. She holds U.S. professional engineering and full financial licenses. Her work focuses on blockchain, cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence. At Sun TV, she leads strategic planning and investment, aiming to empower culture through technology and expand global impact.

Introduction: A New Era of Civilization Starts with Understanding

When AI can generate images, conversations, text, and even poetry and paintings, we must ask: does it truly understand human civilization? Does it know the glory behind an ancient bronze? Can it feel the deep emotions in a traditional landscape painting?

From a technical view, AI is good at processing large data. But it still knows little about the deeper parts of culture — emotions, values, historical context, and storytelling logic. Yet, these are the real core of civilization.

Now, as algorithms meet ancient cultures, we stand at a new beginning: one where stories become assets, and culture becomes training data for AI.

01 Information is Plentiful, Understanding is Rare

We live in a digital world filled with content. Every day, millions of posts appear on social media, video platforms, and knowledge sites. The amount of content is growing faster than we can process.

But more content does not mean more understanding. Most of it is just information — not knowledge, and far from wisdom. People are used to getting fragmented information. Slowly, we lose the ability to understand culture as a whole.

What’s more, AI is trained on this kind of shallow data. It learns from a sea of noise, lacking depth and historical meaning.

So even though the numbers are large, real stories are fewer. Noise is everywhere, but our cultural understanding is fading.

02 The AI Gap: Missing Stories and Meanings

AI can read text, recognize sound and images. It can even write, paint, and create. But does it really understand the stories of our civilization?

For example, to an AI, a bronze vessel might just be data about shape and material — not a symbol of ritual from the Zhou dynasty. A landscape painting might be lines and colors — not a reflection of the harmony between nature and humans.

This is AI’s current limitation. It lacks the ability to feel meaning. It does not understand stories. It knows what something is, but not what it means.

To become more than a tool, AI must learn this missing piece.

03 Stories are the Operating System of Civilization

Humans became builders of civilization not just by storing knowledge, but by telling stories. Stories help us explain the world, share values, and pass on wisdom.

From Genesis to The Analects, from Mahabharata to the Bitcoin White Paper, great texts are more than words. They carry values, philosophy, and spirit of the time.

If AI wants to understand society, data is not enough. It needs to learn from stories. These stories must be clear in structure and rich in meaning. That’s how it builds its worldview.

We are not feeding AI with just data. We are feeding it with civilization.

04 Cultural Distillation in Practice

A good example is Sun TV’s documentary The Stories Behind National Treasures. It is not just a video, but a cultural experiment.

It follows three steps:

• From object to story: Use video to let silent artifacts speak.

• From fragments to meaning: Combine bits of history into full narratives.

• From spirit to model: Turn values, emotions, and aesthetics into something that can be passed on.

  
  

The result: cultural objects become more than things. They become assets with stories and meaning.

05 Teaching AI to Understand Emotions and Values

Cultural distillation is the first step in helping AI understand civilization.

Culture is not just data. It is full of emotions, values, and stories. To truly understand it, AI must first learn to sense emotions — like loneliness in a painting, or sadness in music. By labeling and mapping feelings, AI can begin to see more than just form.

Then comes value modeling. Different civilizations have different core beliefs — such as loyalty and family, freedom and equality, or sacred power. These values guide moral choices and behavior. Cultural distillation aims to extract these and turn them into something AI can learn.

History is not just events. It is a chain of cause and effect. Every reform, war, or school of thought is part of a bigger logic. The goal is to model this “path of civilization.”

Finally, storytelling structure matters. Eastern cultures like “beginning, development, turn, and conclusion.” Western stories often use a three-act model. AI needs to learn not just content, but how we tell stories.

These structured elements will help AI build a system for understanding human civilization.

06 Digital Culture Models: Giving Civilization a DNA

A digital culture model is not just a database. It is a structured unit of civilization.

It includes four parts:

• Story structure

• Value parameters

• Semantic depth

• AI explainability

  
  

For example, a jade disk is more than “age + material + function.” It also carries symbolic meaning, political context, and comparisons with Western symbols. This is its cultural DNA.

Such models can:

• Create digital archives that show both fact and value.

• Train AI with core cultural knowledge.

• Help culture go global through structured translation.

• Shift evaluation from clicks to meaning and influence.

  
  

If memory kept culture alive in the past, models will carry it into the future.

07 How AI Changes Art Value

AI is not just a creator. It also changes how we define value in art.

In the past, we judged art by fame, market price, or style. Now, AI helps us ask deeper questions: What feelings does this piece express? What symbols does it use? What issues does it respond to?

AI can suggest new story structures, track the creative process, and show how a work connects with past culture.

So, the way we value art is changing. It’s not just “Is it expensive?” but “Does it carry cultural depth?”

AI can measure how meaningful, inclusive, and thoughtful a work is. It builds a new framework of value.

AI also helps art travel across cultures. A painting can be understood and reimagined in a new context. This cross-cultural reach is key to the future of art.

08 Civilization as Asset: Making Stories Transferable

What kind of story can become a civilizational asset?

It must be more than beautiful. It needs:

• Clear structure

• Clear values

• Easy understanding

• Provable facts

• Emotional power across cultures

  
  

A good story must make sense, be logical, and touch people from different backgrounds. It should hold deep knowledge — historical facts or unique ideas — and be structured enough for AI to read.

It must also be verifiable. In the digital age, only stories that can be traced and confirmed can be protected and shared. Blockchain and other tech can give stories a kind of cultural ID.

Making stories into assets is not selling culture. It is protecting and enabling it to live on.

09 In the Next Decade: Civilization as Influence Structure

Civilization’s influence will go through three stages over the next ten years:

2026–2028: Story as Data

• Build structured databases of cultural stories.

• Create training material for AI to learn civilization.

2028–2032: Story as Platform

• Creators, developers, and researchers use these cultural models.

• Stories become units of collaboration and innovation.

After 2032: Story as Cultural Intelligence

• AI can understand values and context.

• It becomes a member of cultural dialogue.

  
  

This path shows us a future where:

Culture is not only passed down. It is co-created and shared by humans and AI.

Conclusion: We Are Not Preserving the Past, We Are Training the Future

Culture never stands still. But in the AI age, it needs new ways to express and protect itself.

Sun TV’s Sun AI Lab is working on this challenge. Through distillation, modeling, value mapping, and storytelling, it turns culture into something AI can truly understand.

We are not just saving the past. We are training AI to carry our civilization forward. This is more than technology. It is a new kind of responsibility.

Culture will no longer live only in books and museums. It will become a model that can be learned.

AI is not just a calculator. It is the apprentice of civilization.

We are not preserving the past.We are training the future.